Jim Knowles has been impressed with Ohio State’s offense early in spring camp.

The Buckeyes’ defensive coordinator sees the offense as the standard, the reason to raise his unit’s level of production and accountability just to match what offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson and head coach Ryan Day are building.

“I’ll tell you what, it is impressive to go against one of the nation’s if not the best offense right here, you know, on the practice field,” Knowles said. “And I see that. I see what Coach has done and all the offensive coaches (have) done with the talent and I know that they’re going to be great.”

When Wilson heard what Knowles had said, all the compliments the defensive coordinator was sending his way, the offensive coordinator just shrugged it off with a sly grin.

“That’s just a defensive coach in spring ball. He’s trying to butter us up for tomorrow’s practice,” Wilson said. “I’m not buying it.”

What Wilson sees for his offense is a potential to learn, a potential to grow facing a defensive mind that’s considered to be one of the best in college football.

Before the offensive coordinator can prepare for any other opponent, he has to prepare for Ohio State, seeing what advantages he has going against his own defense every day this spring heading into fall camp.

And with that, Wilson will do the same thing opposing offensive coordinators, position coaches and players will do when the season starts Sept. 3.

He’s watching Oklahoma State film.

“The first couple days here, we want to do some walk-throughs, and we really didn’t know what they were doing,” Wilson said. “So we’re actually watching Oklahoma State cut ups like ‘OK, what do they play with this formation? What does it look like? What’s their alignment? ‘ And as we go, I guess we’ll get a better feel.”

Wilson sees the potential for a great defense just by the looks it gives the offensive line and the quarterback, making them work each snap to diagnose what they are seeing, bringing multiple looks and movement to each play.

“There’s a lot of alignments, but the coverage picture changes,” Wilson said. “So the quarterback thinks he’s got one coverage, ball is snapped, here comes people moving at him and the coverage is changing and your ability to think on your feet. So it appears there’s going to be a lot of moving parts.”

If anything, Wilson feels Knowles’ defense will help him prepare his offense better for what opposing defenses will try and attack Ohio State with in the fall.

The offensive coordinator said Ohio State’s defense will force the offense to develop variations of plays that can attack opposing defenses no matter the base scheme they are facing, whether it’s a zero blitz or bear front, to a drop-eight package or Cover 3.

It’s an opportunity to develop variability in offensive game planning instead of being a static offense hoping that something works.

And it’s only going to make Ohio State better.

“As an offensive coach, we get attacked very aggressively on Saturday from defensive teams: multiple coverages and schemes and fronts and movements and twists and movements. I think the more stuff you see, you get immune to it,” Wilson said. “The more you stress the offensive line, the more you stress the quarterback in practice, the better Paris (Johnson Jr.) and those guys will become and the better C.J. (Stroud) and Kyle (McCord) and Devin (Brown) will become.”

For an offense that was statistically one of the best units in the country last year, Wilson’s goal is to not lead a static unit.

The offensive coordinator feels Knowles can help with that.

“You know, he has a lot of tools in the toolbox,” Wilson said.